How amazing it is to get motivated and inspired by a book I just picked up cause its cover was pink and contained the two words I adore: Love & Life. I am reading LoveXStyleXLife by Garance Dore and I had this moment of awakening inside. She moved in Paris, the city she loved the most when she was 31, having to leave her beloved ones behind and to live in a tiny flat, having money just enough for only a few weeks, but full of excitement for being there, in that moment. And just like that, as I was reading her rule no5 “Seize the moment”, I stopped being hard on myself, like my friend the other day, and actually said out loud how proud I am for what I have done so far. Back in March 2013, I had to leave my family and my unique, deep in my heart sister in a very crucial moment in order to make my dream come true, moving to London. And I knew literally one person. I felt anonymous for the first time in my life and it was both scary and liberating. Half of myself was cut off as I was kissing my dad at the airport as if I was coming back that evening to have dinner together, and got on the plane to my dreams. Landing was tough, London can be both romantically yet cruelly grey. I was 31, like Garance, when I moved to a tiny shoe box Londoners call “flat” and knew that my money would last for a couple of months unless I found myself a well paying job. And I worked ridiculously hard without consuming myself to this effort, and I did found that job and in less that three years time I managed to succeed in what others in Greece were laughing at me about. I left the shoe box and I now rent a penthouse flat with a window view to my London, the most beautiful city of my world, where people do the impossible in order to move in and feel free just being themselves. Amazingly, this is how most of the immigrants I know, feel like when you ask them “why did you choose London?”. Moving to London under those circumstances was the craziest decision I have ever made, I exposed myself without safety net, I put myself out there for myself, but it was a moment of opportunity. It was where myself was waiting for me. And that is lifetime dream.
A couple of days earlier…
Sunday morning food for thought: Still in bed with coffee, books and Bonobo, I can’t stop thinking about last night. A dear friend of mine, just once again, judged me for my “unquiet mind”, my way of thinking, which to me is the way I feel about certain things, such as human relationships. Being told that I chose the least positive scenario about someone’s awkward behaviour towards me, cause that would make me unhappy, as if I intentionally would want to be unhappy, hurt me so much that I just said good night and left almost in tears. On my way home, I wondered why I cared that much about my friend’s opinion about me, I know who I am and nobody’s shortsighted snobbishly superficial opinion should touch me. The things I care about no matter if that is art, books, gossips, music, lovers, fairy tales and so on, are part of my universe, my qualities, and our qualities should be what attracts people to us. Having said that, Why do we even bother prooving ourselves to others? But above all, why are we taking pleasure in judging people’s choices and minds? Perhaps, “critisizing” our own life choices and behaviours is so painfully tough, as we take our little ego so fucking seriously, that we tend to spend hours not being alone or idle, not being bored or not busy, in order to avoid letting anything unpleasant like memories, feelings or fears to come out on the surface, and eventually we become others’ judges and “free” consultants to feel good about ourselves.
nassia kapa 